Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Color Profiles Tutorial

What can I say about color profiles in CS5?  Well, they totally get me mad to start!!!!  I had my profile set to SRGB straight across the board...in my camera, in Adobe Camera Raw, and in Photoshop CS5.  Then my photoshop crashed and it took several hours of my hubby's work to get the stinking thing back up and running.  Thank you my AWESOME husband!

After it was all fixed up, I set some special things that I like that I have learned from Scott Kelby's CS5 book and thought I was ready to start editing images.  Hmmmm....good thing I noticed late last night as I was finishing the edits that my Camera Raw was set to Adobe 1998 instead of SRGB.  I thought I better do a test print before I burned my images on a disc for this sweet family I took pictures of a couple of weeks ago.  I printed at Costco and the prints came out nice, but I wasn't so sure if they could come out better or not.

So, tonight I spent some time and am up late...yet again...and switched everything back to SRGB, the way it was before it crashed.  I then took the images that I had edited in Adobe Camera RAW in Adobe 1998, then in photoshop in SRGB and converted them straight across as SRGB.  Then uploaded  a few pictures to Costco to see if there was any difference at all.  I have not yet gotten the prints, but I could see a big difference right on my screen on Costco's upload page.  Here are the screen shots, not sure if you will be able to see the big difference...but I sure can.

This one is Adobe 1998

This one is SRGB

So, how in the world do you switch your setting to SRGB...if they are not already?  This is what I did, not that it is the best way...but it made a big difference alone in the screen shots.  (which in the past do dictate the color I generally get from Costco)

ANYHOW, most cameras have a "color profile" menu that you can manipulate.  So, lets start there...first go find "color profile" and switch it to SRGB.  Now, if you are shooting in RAW, then it won't make a difference, since you later decide which profiles to use when shooting RAW.  I shoot RAW and still have my "color profile" set to SRGB.

Next, when you launch Adobe Camera Raw and select a picture from bridge to upload there...check out that blue little highlighted line at the very bottom of your image.  CLICK  IT.  A dialog bog will pop up with different choices for color profiles...pick SRGB.

Now, bring that image into photoshop and click on "Edit" in the menu bar.  If you go almost all the way to the bottom you will see "Color Settings, Assign Profile, and Convert to Profile".  Set them ALL to SRGB.

I mentioned earlier there might be a better way to do this...but this gets really nice looking prints for me right now from Costco.  I am currently checking out professional labs for my prints and I might have to change this, but I really don't think I will have to.  I have heard from several professionals that SRGB is the way to go.  Lets hope so!!!!

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